Battles You Don't Win
by histrashexcellency
Summary: Some days are good, other days bad, encompassed in a thin layer of fatigue that no amount of sleep can cure. Saitama carries on as he always has and chalks it up to a lack of challenges to engage in. But when days turn into weeks and months, he is forced to admit begrudgingly that something is not quite right. [Chapter 1 is written in Saitama's perspective. Chapter 2 is Genos' ]
1. Chapter 1

In his defense, there were no obvious signs that things were amiss. No sudden flash of awareness or passing information that could have sparked a suspicion. It was…subtler than that. The sort of awareness that sneaks up on you a little bit too late, because you've already waded too deep into a predicament before it even begins occurring to you. 

For as long as he could remember, the sense of fatigue that continues to plague him even to this day has always been there. Hanging over his days like a hazy shroud in the background, not intense enough to demand immediate attention, but present enough to be noticed. Then there's the aching- dull yet persistent. Sometimes he'd wake up and it would be there, heavy against his bones. In the base of his lower back, the tightness of his shoulders, the soreness of his thighs. But with the intense training he undertook on his path of becoming a hero, physical pain was to be expected.

It was only long after his physically demanding training practices turned into easily accomplished daily routines that he realised the fatigue and unexplained aches were persistent. 

The small change in awareness was enough to act as a catalyst in the discovery of more signs that things are not quite right with himself.

There was the lack of motivation and interest in things he used to enjoy. The heaviness in his chest that weighs down on him as he goes about his day. The odd and stifling discovery that he can't seem to feel much of anything anymore after gaining immense strength. Some days were okay, other days he wakes up and his tongue feels like sandpaper. Some days he can't really bring himself to do anything but laze around at home and spend hours upon hours with manga or television because everything required energy he did not have in himself that day. On the really bad days, he doesn't feel good even with a lot of sleep and has to force himself to eat even when he isn't hungry. On the bad days, there was never any point in doing anything. 

With Genos around, things were a lot better. Chores were quickly and easier managed with the effort of two people. Meals were a lot better compared to the discount cup ramen Saitama would stock up on when he doesn't feel like eating out or getting groceries. They patrolled, fought mysterious beings, and met new people over the course of their encounters. Before he knows it, Saitama's balcony is slowly graced with more easily kept plants and succulents, to accompany his one lone cactus. It was better. But the disquieting lethargy and problems don't quite go away. 

There are still days where Saitama doesn't feel quite right. Days like this one. Where he wakes and the exhaustion beseeches him to return to sleep. Where he has to fight to go through the motions of the day with a heaviness in his eyes and an even heavier crushing weight against his chest. Days where he's existing and everything feels bad.

Everything feels bad and he doesn't know why but he's tired of feeling this way even if he can't help it. He tries his best to just get through days like this but sometimes even his best falls short. And everything becomes too much. The tears come, like water escaping from a broken dam, faster than he can wipe them away. His shoulders shake despite his best efforts and it hurts- His eyes sting, his nose clogs up and the heat traversing to his head because of how hard he cries hurts. But he's never able to stop because it's too much, everything is too much. It takes a while to register the soft sensation of his own blankets being wrapped around himself when he finally gets his breathing under control, their familiarity a small grounding comfort. That momentary distraction prompts the hero to look up at Genos, still shaking. He sees the concern written on his normally chatty disciple's features. He can see the hesitance and worry plainly, feel Genos tightening his hold on the blankets he draped over him.

The cyborg barely has a chance to get a word out before he's crying again, breathing in sharp gasps and trembling with the effort to form words. He knows the other wants to ask about the cause of his distress. He knows that Genos is worried. But he doesn't have the answers to what he's trying to understand himself.

"I'm hurting." His voice cracks with the exertion. Raw. "I don't know why." 

He doesn't know how long he remained in Genos' arms.

But he must have cried himself to sleep, for when Saitama opened his eyes again, it was to softly glowing biolights, a firm embrace and small circles being traced against his back as he was rocked gently. He's still tired and he's pretty sure his head is splitting from the godawful headache he's developed from crying too hard. There's an emptiness inside that has him quaking, but at least it doesn't hurt anymore for now.

And that will have to be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Adjusting to the routine of balancing hero duties, domestic duties and observing the life habits of his teacher was somewhat of a challenge to someone like Genos. Having grown accustomed to tending to his own matters, the requirement of having to learn how to accommodate others and be accommodated in return, was a little hard to wrap his head around. But Genos would like to think that he has done a decent job of doing so.

While he has yet to discover the source of his teacher's strength, moving in with the other was not without it's merits. Under the guidance of Saitama, he had gained insight to things that would never have occurred to him without being pointed out by the other- the strategy behind acquiring products during sales, how to bargain without being perceived as overly aggressive, the recycling of mysterious being parts, how certain actions made others uncomfortable...the list of things Genos had learned from his teacher over the years he'd been there only serves to grow with each passing day.

But that's not all the cyborg has picked up on.

Most days, their routine resembles clockwork and they go through it in the same manner they go through every day. Then there are the days where his teacher's steps seem a lot heavier, his reactions a fraction slower. There are days where his teacher is quiet- even by Saitama's own standards. These are the ones that worries Genos the most, because his teacher's presence is diminished. The cyborg understood the concept of people enjoying solitude, reducing the volume of noise and buzz around them so as to recharge. But this- it's like hitting the mute button on life altogether. Existing in stagnant air. Drifting into a place Genos can't reach.

There are days where his teacher's words are spoken in low lackluster murmuring if he even spoke at all. Saitama is the most restless when he's like that, fidgeting repeatedly with the hems of his pants and sleeves in an absentminded manner. Sometimes his teacher dozes for the majority of the day inside the apartment, rejecting offers to eat out or take a walk, leaving most of the hero work to Genos until there were mysterious beings that threaten to overwhelm the city. Other times, Genos would rise from 'sleep' mode to see him still awake, blinking blankly at the ceiling until early morning.

He'd thought to ask of course. But the only explanations he would ever receive were that this was perhaps part of the side effects from his teacher's rigorous training regime in the past, or that he's just "tired" but he's fine. The older hero never seemed to want to talk about the peculiarities in his tendencies so in time, Genos learns to let it go and instead does his best to understand that through observing once more.

To combat his teacher's low energy levels, he decides to do what he can to keep fresh air flowing. A clean apartment with calming objects like plants can sometimes serve to improve his teacher's mood just a little. He lets Saitama soak in the bath a little longer, uses reasons like observation to knead the tension out of Saitama's shoulders or back, creates easily ingested food in reasonable portions so that the task of finishing them did not appear too daunting, and let's his core run just a little louder at night so that it rumbles softly beneath his vents- a steady consistent presence.

He doesn't know if Saitama had been aware of his efforts, he must have, since his teacher tries his best to still meet him halfway in things even when he's "really tired".

But perhaps Genos should have tried just a little harder to identify the source of these peculiarities. Perhaps he should have sought out answers and asked the right questions because then he would not be stuck in this position, not knowing what to do when Saitama wakes up one day and could not find it in himself to leave his futon. It takes an eternity to keep him awake. Another eternity to coax half-hearted replies out of his teacher.

Though his physical vessel is constructed with mainly metal parts than organic, and his sensations relied on psychosomatic feedback mostly, the section where his abdomen would be feels like it's squeezed tight. For the first time in a very long while, Genos remembers what it feels like to be cold, heavy with the understanding that something is wrong and yet unable to know how to fix it. He does eventually manage to get the elder hero to sit up and go through the motions of things. He doesn't quite succeed with anything else because Saitama is crying. There were a lot of scenarios Genos can come up with if one were to ask him what he'd never like to have to witness. His esteemed teacher's form, hunched in as if to reduce the space he took, shaking like a leaf- was one of such scenarios.

Saitama cries and Genos _aches_. He does not have the capability of fixing whatever it was that ails the other.

He can do nothing when faced with Saitama's distress and it unsettles him, to come to know that there was little he could do for this man regardless of how fervently Genos wishes for it to be not so. The cyborg pulls blanks for a while when he attempts to retrieve memories and information on what to do. What is left of tender memories are few and in between but in his own hurt, it draws up hazy images of arms, soft comfort and a face- blurred out but gentle.

He draws the shaking form of his teacher into his own arms, distracting the man briefly by creating a soft cocoon over his frame with his blanket, tucking him against his side. And though he no longer has a heart, the cyborg swears he can feel it break again when he hears the equally disquieted sensation that mirrors his own when Saitama finally finally offers an admission that he is hurting but has no idea why. He does not know what to do or say. Only tightens, squeezing the other in his arms as he continues to cry. Genos holds on to Saitama long after his jagged breathing evens out and he falls into a deep sleep, afraid to let him go. It aches to see someone you believe so staunchly in, teetering on the brink of breaking into pieces.

He still doesn't know what to do. But if there's one thing that Genos does know, it'd be that he intends to try.

He may never be able to fully incinerate the source of his teacher's ailments but if there was a chance that he could make it better, make things brighter for Saitama, then he wants to try.


End file.
